The Role and Status of Women in the Sikh Society

The Role and Status of Women in the Sikh Society

Iventure to say few seekers are absolutely wrong when they think that Sikhism is cult of Hinduism. Sikhism is the most simple and straightforward religion, but it is a tragedy that various vested interests have tried to misinterpret the philosophy of Sikhism. The Hindu elite have, since long, been trying to define Sikhism as an offshoot of Hinduism because, according to them, most of the Sikhs have/had their roots in Hindu families. I ask simple question to such Hindu ideologists, ‘Do you accept with the same logic all Hindus who due to circumstances converted in to Muslim Religion as ‘Shunat Dhari” Hindus; after all they too have/had their roots in Hindu Families???

The theological principles, the articles of faith, the way of life, rites and rituals etc of the Sikhs are altogether different from those of the Hindus, need not to dwell on it. Sikhism made a radical departure from Hinduism by demolishing the iniquitous barriers that the Hindu society had erected between man and man, and between man and woman.

The Sikh Gurus laid down the foundations of a healthy, egalitarian and progressive social order.

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They advocated the principles of universal equality and brotherhood as the only true basis of social relations. The Sikh concept of equality transcended the narrow considerations of caste, creed, clime, sex and colour.

The Sikh Gurus held woman equal to man in every field of life. They pleaded for equal rights and privileges for her, both in religious and socio-political fields. Sikhism does not debar woman from attaining salvation. She can realize the highest religious goal while remaining a woman. There is no need for her to first take birth as a man to attain mukti. A woman is not debarred from reading the Scripture. She can act as a priest, conduct the service, and lead a prayer in the gurdwara. She can join any congregation without any inhibition and restriction. She does not have to veil herself while sitting in a congregation. She can receive as well as impart baptism. She enjoys equal religious rights.

Guru Amar Das—(third after Guru Nanak in the line of Guruship) even assigned to women the responsibility of supervising the community in certain sectors. They were invested with the office of preachership and missionary work. Some of them assumed the role of a fighter for dharam yudh and fought against enemy forces. The Sikh history records with appreciation the heroic deeds performed by these brave Sikh women. It was the impact of the egalitarian Sikh teaching that these women could come to the fore and distinguish themselves.

The transformation the Sikh Gurus brought in woman's status was truly revolutionary. The concept of equality of woman with man not only gave woman an identity of her own but tended to free her from all kinds of fetters to which she was bound in the Hindu society. Condemned to a life of misery and degradation and deprived of all social privileges and rights, she had hitherto come to develop a slavish mentality. This coupled with social restraints had totally killed her initiative and restricted her mobility. She had grown into a listless individual and wore a pathetic sight.

It was in this setting that Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, raised his voice for justice to women and provided the scriptural basis for equality which was not to be found in the scriptures of other India born religions. He pleaded the cause of women and strove for their liberation in the fifteenth century whereas women's emancipation movement in Europe started much later, in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. In an age when the inferiority of women was taken for granted and female infanticide and the customs of ‘purdah’ and sati were commonly practised, the Guru spoke out against them in a voice of reason and sanity. As the Sikh faith grew, his protest grew louder and it demolished one by one all centuries-old disabilities against woman. In an oft-quoted sermon the Guru tries to show the folly of treating woman with disrespect :

From the woman is our birth;

In the woman's womb are we shaped.

To the woman are we engaged;

To the woman are we wedded.

The woman, yea, is our friend,

And from woman is the family.

If one woman dies, we seek another;

Through the woman are the bonds of the world,

O' why call woman evil who giveth birth to kings

From the woman is the woman;

Without the woman there is none;

Nanak, without the woman is the

One True Lord Alone (SGGS - 473)

Guru Nanak insisted that woman must be treated with difference as she is the source of man's physical existence and his entire social life. The Sikh Gurus denounced all those practices and restrictions which tended to reduce woman to a position of inferiority. They gave them more freedom in the affairs of the society. The false notions that women were unclean were removed. Women were no longer considered a source of sin. They came to be respected as equally good members of the society. In the medieval India, the practice of sati (immdation of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband) was common. The Sikh Gurus condemned it long before any notice of it was taken by Akbar and later by the British rulers. Guru Amar Das carried out a vigorous campaign for the aboliton of this inhuman and barbarous practice. He observed :

A Sati is not she, who burneth herself

On the pyre of her spouse.

Nanak : a Sati is she, who dieth with

The sheer shock of separation.

Yea, the Sati is one who liveth contended

And embellisheth herself with good conduct :

And cherisheth her Lord ever and calleth

On Him each morn.

The women burn themselves on the pyres

Of their lords,

But if they love their spouses well,

they suffer the pangs of separation even otherwise,

He further said :

She who loveth not her spouse,

Why burneth she herself in fire?

For, be he alive or dead.

She owneth him not (SGGS - 787)

The Guru denounced Sati as an infliction of unforgivable cruelty on women and strove hard for the emancipation of women from this forced brutal social practice. He also sought amelioration of the position of women by deprecating the custom of purdah (veil) and by encouraging widow remarriage. No woman could come to the congregation in purdah.. The girls were also encouraged to receive education. Child marriage was discouraged and the practice of female infanticide severely banned. The latter was considered so important that it was subsequently made a part of the instructions given to the Sikhs at the time of baptism. The oath requires that Sikhs will not practise female infanticide or have any association at all with those who practise it. Guru's baptism was and is open to all. A Sikh cannot be called a Sikh if he discriminates between a high and a low or between a man and a woman. Sikhism has thus been a potent influence in the emanicipation of Indian womanhood..

In Sikhism, a woman is not considered an evil who leads man astray. Nor is she regarded an obstacle in the realization of the spiritual ideals. Sikhism is a householder's religion for man and woman alike. The Sikh Guru honoured the institution of marriage and strongly denounced asceticism. They castigated those yogis who left their houses and lived on the generosity of the common people. The yogis took pride in being celibates but inwardly they were in fact craving for sexual indulgence. Said Guru Nanak, "In his hands in the begging bowl and he wears a patched coat like a mendicant's but with him is immense craving. And though he abandons his own wife, he's attached to another's, lured by sex-desire" (SGGS 1013) The Sikh Gurus condemned the hypocrisy that characterized yogis. In their view, there is nothing unclean about the normal sex life. All the Sikh Gurus were married men, except the eighth Sikh Guru who died very young. They also led a normal life of a householder and regarded sex desire as a natural phenomenon.

In Sikhism, spiritual freedom is to be secured not by the unnatural suppression of human desires but by their judicious organization. In other words, Sikhism is for temperate gratification of bodily desires. It deprecates animality in man and approves the institution of marriage as the practical and natural artifice for taming and controlling the biological instincts. Man and woman are equal companions in life. Their role is complementary and not competitive.. Woman is considered ardhangni, that is the other half of man. The basis of man-woman relationship is true love, nothing else.

According to Guru Amar Das, "Bride and groom are not they who pose as one whole; bride and groom are they who are two bodies with one soul" (SGGS- 788) Marriage aims at the fusion of two souls into one. It is a means by which the two souls attain spiritual growth. Marriage is thus a loving comradeship between a man and a woman who seek to live creatively in partnership to gain the four objects of life: dharma, artha, kama and moksha.

To conclude, Sikhism fully recognizes the useful role played by woman. She is not an evil or a seductress, but the mother of mankind. Guru Nanak's was the first voice raised against discrimination perpetuated on the mute and submissive woman. Sikhism endeavored to create elements of a fresh and vigorous life by giving due recognition to the constructive and important role played by her in the society.